SUNDAY NIGHT BLUES

I’m writing on Sunday night because my Monday is jam packed as I get ready to leave for Mexico. I will spend the first two weeks on a personal retreat and so won’t write again until March 27th. Retreat means read, read, read, eat popcorn, sleep, sit in sun, meditate, ruminate, cogitate and sedate with a little Mescal. And see what emerges, what comes clear, what gets restless, what gets calm. Like that.Here is the burp that plagues me tonight and was triggered by a comment of a colleague.My colleague had a college roommate from North Eastern Europe (can’t remember which country) and she said to my colleague, “You Americans have such a deep disease. I don’t know how you stand it.” My friend asked what the disease was. Her roommate answered, “Loneliness of course. You all stand alone and lonely. Separate houses. Separate lives. Old parents alone. I feel the loneliness in this country.”Ugh. She named a feeling I choose to block out. Here is my burp. I am lonely on Sunday nights. I want to have had all of my grown kids and their kids for dinner as obligation and pleasure. I want the fights and the laughter of my tribe. I want to be the Matriarch ofthe family not of a concept of a family. I hate the displacement that college and loves and work created. Along with divorce. I intend no blame to my spread out kids. I left my family hometown and my parents in Indiana to come to Maine for my big crazy family adventure here. And they were gracious and loving as I left and then forever after, a little lonely. My mom would tell me about baby showers and and wedding showers that she went to alone where all my cousins and their moms would be. She wouldn’t linger on it for fear of burdening me. We were very close regardless. I do smile as I remember her saying, “Maybe you wouldn’t love me as much if I lived closer.” She was wrong. It would have just been different. Being able to take family for granted is the gift of safety and connection that comes with geographic closeness. Less special heightened love.Normalcy is so soothing.So I get Sunday Night Blues.Do you?